Salvage to Rebuilt: 2010 Mercury Milan

It has been about 9 months since I bought anything at the IAA Insurance Auction.  I have detailed my purchases in threads like this one and its sub-links.  https://grassrootsmotorsports.com/forum/grm/learn-me-auto-auctions-copart-brokers-iaas-etc/132812/page1/

This week, I bought a 2010 Mercury Milan Premium Edition.  All the options but with the 2.5L 4cyl engine with 6 speed auto.

In this first picture the front nose is held to the car via two large zip ties.    

In this picture the nose is loose. 

I went on Monday and looked at the car.  The bidding was Tues.  The trunk is stuffed with pieces.  I saw that both headlights are there as well as the other pieces like the absorption bar for the front bumper and all the other cowl plastics and wheel well liners.  

My guess is the car took a super light hit to the front.  As is common, the Insurance Co may have paid the body shop to do a little teardown to investigate damage.  All of this front end seems to have been removed carefully.  I am not sure what the body shop found but the IAA info says the car was valued at $6,518 in pre-damage condition and that it has $5,919 in damage.  Sure that would be a professional body shop repair making it great.  I'm not looking for great.  I'm looking for good enough.  My goals are to keep the car, not flip it.  

In my initial investigations back at home I see that both headlights are in the trunk.  One light has all 5 of the 5 connecting points in tact and one has one broken connecting point (leaving 4 good connectors which should be enough!)  Both light fit into their respective locations perfectly.  No bent metal of bent housings keeping the lights from being reinstalled.  The front, black absorption bar has one broken connecting clip but the remaining 7 clips that hold it on will be fine!  

The front grill has some cracks in the vertical slats and there is one big "scuff" in the plastic front nose on the lower passenger side.  It seems that this will have enough connecting points to all go back on well enough!  Good enough for me.   All the needed pieces seem to be there and it looks like all the pieces will fit/work well enough.   

2010 Mercury Milan Premium 4cyl with 103k miles.  The interior is completely clean.  No funky smells, pet hair or evidence of kids.  The back seat seems never used.  There are 3 quality brand, matching tires with great tread and one more recent Douglas Brand (Walmart tire on the back.)  The spare tire and jack were out of their regular storage place.  I suspect there was a flat that resulted in the quick purchase of this WalMart tire.  Not sure if this was part of what took the car off the road.  I can not understand what really caused the car not to be fixed.  Mechanically the car seems fine.  No airbags ever went off.  

I had my max bid set for $1,650 all in after fees.  I thought I was keeping this max bid low because I did not want to risk too much and leave room for replacement dollars. I was amazed when bidding ended at $700 resulting in an all in price after fees of $1,048  

Great score. These are nice I have a 2010 V6.

Main issues thus far are the LED tailights , I bought two from ebay TASCA FORD for about $500, installed them myself and Ford wrote me a check for $500. there's a TSB about the tail lights. And the ebrake cable sticks when it is freezing out, so I bought a new assembly.

Photo dump from my phone... 

The Auction was on Tues morning.  Later in the day, I called a friend to borrow his tow dolly.  Much to my surprise he had it with him at the shop, not at his house.  This meant that it could actually be had this same day.  I wasn't sure what day I would find the time this week.  I did have to quit working early because I had to pick up Hooligan #1 early from the babysitter.  I made the decision to pick up kid at 3:30 and drive the 20 minutes to the auction.  They close the office at 4:30.  We made it.    These pics taken just a little down the road from picking it up doing a tie-down safety check after a couple of miles.    This is largely done in remembrance of sending Seth from The Challenge Hotel to the track with a car on a tow dolly pretty much only held on by one wheel after the other worked it's way off!!!   

Trunk items.  L-R.  Fender liner.  Inner grille.  Bumper support (absorption). Headlights. Factory floor mats.  

Just above the muffler tip there is a gouge/break/crack in the plastic bumper.  Oh, well.  Probably not from this event.  

The vertical slats of the grill has some cracking but will be serviceable after tab-A is reunited with slot-B

The big scuff on the passenger side of the front bumper.  There is also a little tear in the plastic on what would be the underside.  Still expected to be serviceable.  

Following this.  Interested to see the process of going salvage to rebuilt.  I may want to do this for my next DD.

I see that she's getting old enough to help. 

nice, following along for more

The goal of these next two pics is to show how well the hood still lines up with the fenders.  The panel gaps look very good.  This is one of the major reasons I bid on the car.  I took this as evidence that the front clip had not been shifted sideways.  Also brought me comfort in thinking no frame work would be needed. 

This pic is to show one "ugly" found.  I wonder if this resulted in no further work being done?  This is the front horn on the passenger side.  Where the bumper bar meets the frame.  A small u-shape bend.  Doesn't seem to affect the bumper bar.  It even makes me wonder if this bend is from this event.  Again, should be serviceable for my needs.  At worst some heat and a BFH!  

ProDarwin said:

Following this.  Interested to see the process of going salvage to rebuilt.  I may want to do this for my next DD.

I have enjoyed doing this series of documenting Salvage buys.  If you notice, I have tried to put links to previous builds within these treads like I did in my first paragraph of this build.  My goal then is that if you find one of these you can get to all the others I have written about.  

  There is a place not to far from me that sells cars like this, not sure how they get them.  I  bought a Beetle from them, turned out to be a good little adventure.    I figured the car worked fine just before the accident.  If you don't care about the salvage or rebuilt title it can be a fun way to get a cheap car.  If the title has been changed to a totaled car there is a process to get a rebuilt title.  Looks like minor damage, but a lot is kind of missing, so that could be fun figuring out how it all goes back together.

In reply to TED_fiestaHP :

I really don't think there is a single major part missing.  It also appears that the parts were gentle removed by a body shop worker.  

Sure, if this was a true insurance job and it was your car that was hit by someone else then yeah, you would demand new/proper parts.  You would not be willing to accept cracks in the grill or 4 ot of 5 connectors.  At shop rates, this car calls for a new bumper plastic painted and then that paint bended into a few other panels also.  Also would require all the black plastic under parts be replaced too since each has at least one compromised mounting point.  Headlights are $300+ each, new.  

How to?  And, how does it all go back together?  I'll admit, I'm not really sure and I don't have a lot of experience with this stuff.  However, it looks like a lot of plastic.  I am sure I can look at it, study it, and figure it out.    However, what I do seem to be missing is all those darn little plastic connectors and small screws.  So, I think my answer will be...  I have checked Pull-a-Part and they have no Milan but they do have the same age Fusion.  I think I will head off to Pull-a-Part and there I will get an education on taking it all apart.  Taking it apart will also get me all the connectors and any part I might need.   

   Yep good enough will save a ton of money, about the same type of job I did on the Beetle.

      The local auto paint store had plastic bumper repair glue, repaired the old bumper cover and repaired the cracked plastic fender.

         Does look like puzzle on the front end of yours, that should be fun....   Interesting part about the beetle, the front bumper cover has to be attached to the fenders prior to install, so both front fenders have to come off, get attached to the bumper cover and then it all goes back on.  No access to the mounting screws otherwise....  So that was fun!

John Welsh said:How to?  And, how does it all go back together?  I'll admit, I'm not really sure and I don't have a lot of experience with this stuff.  However, it looks like a lot of plastic.  I am sure I can look at it, study it, and figure it out.    However, what I do seem to be missing is all those darn little plastic connectors and small screws.  So, I think my answer will be...  I have checked Pull-a-Part and they have no Milan but they do have the same age Fusion.  I think I will head off to Pull-a-Part and there I will get an education on taking it all apart.  Taking it apart will also get me all the connectors and any part I might need.   

Looks like a great buy! But don't do this - those plastic connectors are cheap and are really ideally single use. Or at least after 8 years they're brittle enough that you'll have looser fitting connectors after they're removed and reinstalled. When I was putting the MR2 Spyder back together all the bumper connectors were messed up and I had a ton of plastic push connectors that were worn under the frunk. I found this assortment on Amazon and it has been awesome:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B072KXQXL7

and for $25 you have everything you need to put the car back together and have a ton of spares for the next project. I find it to be super handy to have around and have used a number of them since the MR2 project.

In reply to dculberson :

Wow, Done!  I clicked right onto the amazon order and it will be here Friday.  

I'm always in need of some of those damn things!  

I do something similar.  I go to the junkyard and pull a few to figure out the different sizes, then order those on ebay in bulk.

like this for example:  https://www.ebay.com/itm/100pcs-10mm-for-Honda-Clips-Plastic-Push-Type-Rivet-Retainer-Fastener-Bumper-Pin-/400870772862

Mcmaster Carr actually has some of that stuff and lots of other useful hardware.

   With a little time and effort the cracked grill could be repaired, add a little good epoxy to all the cracks and it will hold up a lot better.  Best epoxy I have found yet, T-88 from aircraft spruce, I also by any needed metal from them.

Photo dump from my phone. 

Check back for some text later. 

Before:

After wash:

Tab-a re inserted to slot-b with the help of little yellow harbor freight pry bar. 

Black rear grill added to silver front grill with enough clips remaining to hold it. 

There are now 10 zip ties where there previously were none. 

Fog lights work! Not shown, the headlights are not working but the amber turn signal lights do.  Headlight bulbs or more??? 

I strongly believe that once my Amazon connectors arrive I can put this whole thing together with no parts needed! 

Awesome .....   I would have used a lot of epoxy and some aluminum patch plates, but what you did looks like it will work just fine!

    This looks like it will be a easy fix and a great deal!

I think the car is nice looking and a great buy, but your huge, flat, level, concrete parking area makes me totally jealous!

Stampie said:

I see that she's getting old enough to help. 

She's now 4 as of just this month! 

After school/work tonight we washed the car together. She got soaking wet and the crawled around the interior and tried out all the buttons, etc. Fun. I puttsed around surveying the damage an making small repairs..

The 3 tires are Uniroyl with build dates of 5th week of 2017 (pretty new}. The Walmart tire on the passenger rear has a build date of 28th week of 2018 {really new.}  That's like a build in July.  The car arrived at the auction place  around Aug 28th given the date stamp on the photos.  I am now reconsidering that it is likely this tire purchase was a result of the accident. The I'm pact seems to be the scuff under the passenger headlight.  I figure then that Walmart put the fresh tread in the passenger rear so the fwd car would have matching tread depth on the drive wheels.

This leads me to concern of alignment or other damage from tire impact. I drove the car up to about 30 mph in the large, empty parking lot next to my house. All seemed smooth but who knows at 70 mph. 

I just wanted to pop in and say that I love projects like this! Looks like you'll have this thing in working order (and looking good) in no time. Carry on, good sir!

John Welsh said:

Stampie said:

I see that she's getting old enough to help. 

She's now 4 as of just this month! 

Tell her happy birthday from us. You're in trouble now cause 4 is they start thinking more independently. Just wait until she's 10 and tells her math teacher that she doesn't need to listen in class because her Dad knows all this and will teach her at home.  Yeah not a fun conversation at conference day today.

In reply to Stampie :

Ha.  Good luck with that!    At 4 yrs old she thinks she is the great negotiator.  She has a retort for everything weather it is bed times or foods or activities, etc.  She is "strong willed" and very much wants to be "in charge."  Not an all bad thing but needs to be "regulated".  

I prefer my rebuilt cars to clean title, its a great bang for the buck if you dont mind putting in a little bit of work. 

ManhattanM (fka NY535iManual) said:

... but your huge, flat, level, concrete parking area makes me totally jealous!

Everything is flat in this part of Ohio.  But, yeah a lot of concrete.  We bought the place in '11.  It had been on the market for 3 years as the market had been a mess since '08.  It was an estate situation. We ended up getting the place for about 60% of what they were originally asking (and what it was probably worth before market crash.)  If you're in Manhattan you'll be stunned to hear this cost about the same as 2 Tesla D100's.  The midwest...lots of space and cheap.  

It is a weird property. I have over 80ft x 40ft of concrete pad. It is like more of a parking lot than it is a driveway. I have had 8 cars parked out there before and none of the cars were blocked in. If I am willing to block in a few cars, I can easily get a dozen cars out there. 
All totaled, about a 10th of an acre of concrete on a 1/2 acre lot (20% of my property is concrete.) 

If I needed more space, I could park a few at the neighbor property which is a 4 unit condo building.. Beyond that's, the quiet end of the country club's parking lot next to that.

It's also a strange house in that it has an original 3 car attached garage but is only a 2 bedroom house (big bedrooms.)  

This was last Sunday morning in the club parking lot. 

John Welsh said:

In reply to Stampie :

Ha.  Good luck with that!    At 4 yrs old she thinks she is the great negotiator.  She has a retort for everything weather it is bed times or foods or activities, etc.  She is "strong willed" and very much wants to be "in charge."  Not an all bad thing but needs to be "regulated".  

Just wait... Olivia is now in high school and taking a debate class.  Verbal warfare is her raison d'etre now..  Even when she knows she should lose, she finds a way to win.

(BTW, she's jealous of the on-site slalom course and wondering why she didn't have a Lightning McQueen car)